Pensamientos en Sevilla

Before describing what I've been up to the past couple of days, I want to take a couple minutes to write down some random observations I have about living in Sevilla in general.  Sorry that this is a bit disorganized.

• I am ridiculously thankful that my host family has central heating.  Most apartments here don't, so not only do I not need to wear many layers to stay warm inside, but I can also take as long of hot showers as I want.  One other girl in my program said she runs out of hot water after about 3 minutes.  I thankfully don't have to worry about that.
• The traffic lights here are really strange.  There are lights both in front of the intersection and on the far side of the intersection (where stoplights in the US normally are), so if you get stuck in the intersection, you're then paying attention to the second light.  And at some crosswalks, when the pedestrians have a green light, the cars have a flashing yellow light, so motorcycles sometime go in between people.  Also, as soon as the light changes, the cars are moving, so you have to be really careful not to cross when the lights are about the change.
• Parking is also interesting.  Not only do cars park really close together, but they sometimes park on the corner of roads or double park or park in places where they would be towed in the US.  Here is a picture of an intersection near my apartment where cars are parked in the middle of the intersection.  All of the cars pictures are parked.  This is right next to a car shop, so I think it's abnormal even for Seville, but it's pretty crazy.

• I've already talked about weird meal times, but I still haven't exactly figured out how the Spaniards tie these in to their daily lives.  They must snack during the day, since evidently most of my host family just has a salad or something small for dinner (and just toast for breakfast).  I'm not sure how they get by with only one decent sized meal a day.  And I'm not sure exactly when during the evening people get tapas, or if locals go out to eat, when they do that.  I still have a lot more to learn.
• I'm not sure if this is just my host family, but we typically have two courses for meals.  Sometimes the second course is a salad, or for lunch it's typically a meat.  It reminds me of Italy.  Yesterday, I had this potato puree and tuna dish (that was like a shepard's pie just with tuna), and I took a bit more when offered because I figured that was the whole meal since I had had meat (the tuna) already.  But then my senora brought out a plate of sauteed pork that had marinated during the day in a mix of lemon, garlic, and some other stuff. And tonight at dinner, I had a sandwich and pumpkin cream soup, but when I put the soup next to the sandwich so I could alternate between the two, my senora moved the soup to the side and said it was for after the sandwich.
• Evidently there are houses in the suburbs, but in the city everyone lives in apartments.  There are a ton of tiny parks scattered around (plus orange trees along a ton of roads :-) ), so I thankfully don't feel deprived of green.
• All the girls wear boots here!  Or heels.  And some wear flats or nicer sneakers.  I don't know if I've seen a Spanish girl wearing running shoes. It's just interesting because I finally bought a pair of cheap shoes that look like flats but have tiny heels, and while wearing them today, I felt less foreign.  It's weird because I'm not a person that pays much attention to what I wear, but I've worn my running shoes since I got here, and I just feel like they're saying "look, I'm an American" to everyone I pass.  
• All the stores have sales in January and February, so I might just have to take advantage of this over the next few weeks.
• The people here are so used to warm weather that my senora keeps telling Cara and I that we need to put on more clothes (specifically a scarf) when we leave in the morning.
• One of my classmates pointed out earlier today that we see most Spaniards in groups instead of hanging out in pairs.  This might be just Seville, because my senora was telling me today that people in Seville are really nice and it's easy to make friends, but it's hard to make really close friends.  Evidently it's a lot easier to make closer friends in Madrid or up in the north.  I hadn't thought much before about how this depended on the location.
• It's pretty easy to understand Spaniards from Madrid, but it's a lot harder when they speak with an Andalucian dialect.  When they do that, it's about as hard to understand them as in the DR.  It's really easy to understand my senora, but one of her sons who lives with her, Javier, talks really quickly and drops consonants, so it's harder to understand him.  It's getting easier though.
• My senora has 4 kids all in their 20's, 2 of whom still live at home.  Her daughter lives in Madrid and is about to have a kid.  A lot of guys in Spain live at home up until they're around 30 or so, so her two sons at home are normal.  My senora and Javier always seem to disagree about things, which makes lunch conversations quite animated.

I wrote a lot, so I'm going to stop now.  The last two days have consisted of class, homework (it's so easy!), shopping (I now have another pair of shoes, floss- I ran out already-, and a book in spanish - the sequel to Kiterunner).  As an aside, the Spanish name for Kiterunner literally translates as Kites in the Sky.  It's interesting when that happens.  I've also tried another ice cream place and a croissant place (which wasn't very good), gone for a couple more runs, and walked around the city more.